--- In [email protected], "tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Judy writes snipped: > In other words: He's very clear--remarkably clear-- > that it's not that he's suddenly realized that the > earth is really nothing but a "congregation of > vapours," or that other people have no more value > than dust. He's not passing judgment on the earth > and human beings, he's saying there's something > wrong *with him* that he can't take pleasure in > their magnificence. > > TomT: > The inability to take pleasure from the ever changing > relative is also another good description of the Dark > Night of the Soul.
Yup, that's kinda what I was getting at with the Macbeth quote. If that's what Hamlet was experiencing, though, he never made it to the light. I suspect that at least some cases diagnosed and treated as clinical depression are the function of a Dark Night experience that's unrecognized as such by both client and therapist. Goodness only knows what antidepressant medication does to the journey through it. (No, I'm not pulling a Tom Cruise! Most cases of clinical depression are just depression, and antidepressant medication is usually quite effective and can be lifesaving. But those who have been on a spiritual path might want to consider the possibility that they're going through a Dark Night experience.) Nothing in the > relative does it anymore. NO THING. Stuck between the old mind > habits of the relative and not quite firmly established in the > wholeness. What MMY calls "Neither here nor there"... > Tough place to be. > great read http://www.themystic.org/print/dark-night.htm > PS Thanks for both quotes Judy. There is a nice piece in Collision > with the Infinite where Susan Segal surmises that most of Shakespeare > was his attempt to live a life without and I or me. Quite well done.
